The Florida Aquarium

More than 20,000 aquatic plants and animals!

I've been in Florida most of my life, and until now I've never been to the Florida Aquarium. It is an awesome experience that encompasses much more than just fish tanks. From a photography standpoint, shooting in low light environment for much of the day was a challenge. It was especially hard since most of my subjects were moving fish, plants and animals. In some cases I had to get creative with maxing out the ISO and slowing the shutter speed as low as I could without blurring the shot. Many shots took more than one attempt.

The Florida Aquarium's exhibits are laid out to show the journey of a drop of water from one of Florida's many fresh-water springs out to the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

We started the exhibit at the wetlands, a immersive environment that makes you feel like you're in the middle of it all. Birds, fish, turtles, alligators and more are all within arm's reach in many areas. One of the most interesting animals there were the otters. It was a lot of fun to see such a playful animal.

We made our way up to a second level board walk, looking down on some large alligators basking in the sun. In a room ahead were some small to medium sized fish were in tanks. . One of my favorite fish there were called "Glass Fish". You could see right through their bodies, seeing their entire skeleton!

After finishing with the wetlands area, we moved onto the larger tanks and bigger fish. The aquarium features some very large viewing windows and tubular tunnel with water on both sides of you. Here you can see larger tropical fish, sharks, sting rays, eels and more.

They even had some Scuba divers in the large tanks wishing a child happy birthday through the glass. The one diver had a full head mask on with a microphone so that they could talk to us even under water; that was pretty cool. Next to this large tank were the Sea Horses. Those have to be some of the most unique creatures in the ocean. Some of them just looked absolutely amazing. The "Leafy Sea Dragon" was my favorite.

From here we moved on to some of the deeper creatures of the ocean, like jelly fish, crabs, lobsters and more. The moon jellies were especially fun to photograph. They had them in a tank with some florescent lighting that changed colors, and each color glowed bright through the jellies.

We spent about 3 hours walking through the exhibits, and I could have spent much more time there. If you ever get a chance to visit, it is well worth the trip. Check out their website for more details!

View the full photo gallery below!